Marketing to HENRYs, Gen X

In the process of growing AUM and transforming his practice, a New York city-based advisor has been pursuing younger prospects: HENRYs, or “High Earners, Not Rich Yet.” He tells ThinkAdvisor in an interview that he has a young certified financial planner on his team who exclusively prospects for and serves HENRYs. Below, read more details about why and how the firm cultivates and works with these clients. Also, advisors shouldn’t lose sight of Generation X, a group that falls between the baby boomers and millennials, advises marketing consultant April Rudin in a column at WealthManagement.com. She writes that Gen Xers are “the next big fee pool,” and their wealth will increase from less than 14 percent of total U.S. net wealth in 2015 to nearly 31 percent by 2030, according to Deloitte. Rudin notes that the strategies for marketing to millennials will also work for Gen Xers, who are “fiercely independent, entrepreneurial, well-educated and highly technically literate.” See the link to her column below.

Chasing HENRY, the Hottest New Prospect

By Jane Wollman Rusoff

Source: ThinkAdvisor

Forget about “Where’s Waldo?” The search is on for HENRYs. That is, “High Earners, Not Rich Yet.” Forward-thinking advisors are pursuing this millennial subset, a young demographic packed with potential, as New York City-based advisor David Edwards, founder-president of Heron Wealth, told ThinkAdvisor in an interview.

Poor Generation X, sandwiched between two generations that have gotten all the attention. For decades, marketers across all industries (and the financial services industry is no exception) catered to Baby Boomers’ whims and desires, believing that it was this generation that held the purse strings. And Baby Boomers did: Born after World War II until 1964, they worked hard and used their money to fulfill their consumerist desires. Then, Millennials (born 1981 to 2000) became the Next Big Thing—the target of TV commercials, ads and even wealth managers (the slowest industry to catch on). And therein lies the problem: Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, falls between Baby Boomers and Millennials, so in all our efforts to gain the latter, we’ve forgotten about X’ers. Or have we?